UPS Ventures, the venture capital arm belonging to United Parcel Services (UPS) has completed a minority investment in Arrival.
Along with the investment in Arrival, UPS also announced a commitment to purchase 10,000 electric vehicles to be built for UPS by this startup with priority access to purchase additional electric vehicles.
UPS will collaborate with Arrival to develop a wide range of electric vehicles with Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS). The technology is designed to increase safety and operating efficiencies, including the potential for automated movements in UPS depots. UPS will initiate testing ADAS features later in 2020. Future vehicle purchases are contingent on successful tests of initial vehicles. Vehicle purchase prices will not be disclosed.
Arrival is reimagining vehicle design and assembly to create Generation 2 Electric Vehicles. Generation 1 electric vehicles are existing fossil fuel vehicles retrofitted with electric power trains, making them expensive, inefficient and costly to run and maintain. In contrast, Arrival’s Generation 2 products have been designed from a blank sheet and surpass traditional vehicles in cost, design and efficiency.
Generation 2 vehicles are assembled using small footprint microfactories, located in areas of demand and profitable at thousands of units. Headquartered in London with over 800 employees in 5 countries Arrival is vertically integrated, and has created in-house software, components, sustainable materials and modular skateboard platforms.
UPS investment and purchase arrangement comes after Hyundai and Kia had signed partnership and €100 million investment in the skateboard mannufacturing platform developer.
Arrival is the first commercial vehicle manufacturer to provide purpose-built electric delivery vehicles to UPS’s specifications and with a production strategy for global scale. Since 2016, UPS and Arrival have collaborated to develop concepts of different vehicles sizes. The companies previously announced they would develop a state-of-the-art pilot fleet of 35 electric delivery vehicles to be trialed in London and Paris. Additionally, UPS announced a pioneering new approach to electric charging and storage that has now been deployed in UPS’s central London facility.
“UPS has been a strong strategic partner of Arrival’s, providing valuable insight into how electric delivery vans are used on the road and, importantly, how they can be completely optimized for drivers,” said Denis Sverdlov, Arrival chief executive. “Together, our teams have been working hard to create bespoke electric vehicles, based on our flexible skateboard platforms that meet the end-to-end needs of UPS from driving, loading/unloading and back-office operations. We are pleased that today’s investment and vehicle order creates even closer ties between our two companies.”
“Our investment and partnership with Arrival is directly aligned with UPS’s transformation strategy, led by the deployment of cutting-edge technologies,” said Carlton Rose, president of UPS Global Fleet Maintenance & Engineering “These vehicles are the world’s most advanced package delivery vehicles, redefining industry standards for electric, connected and intelligent vehicle solutions.”
As an investor, UPS has the option to fast-track orders as necessary. UPS expects to deploy the EVs in Europe and North America.
Image over the headline.- Arrival self driving and electric delivery vehicle.© Arrival.
Related Eastwind links (Spanish edition):
Hyundai y Kia invierten conjuntamente en Arrival, creadora de la plataforma flexible «skateboard» para la producción de vehículos eléctricos asequibles
(Hyundai and Kia invest in Arrival, the developer of <<skateboard>> the flexible mannufacturing platform to produce small batchs of purpose electric vehicles at reasonable prices)
